"Labor under great discouragements," says the Diary, under date of July
twenty-eighth; "for find my business but mean in the esteem of many, and
think there's not much for a chaplain to do." Again, Tuesday, August
seventeenth: "Breakfasted this morning with the General. But a graceless
meal; never a blessing asked, nor thanks given. At the evening sacrifice
a more open scene of wickedness. The General and head officers, with
some of the regular officers, in General Lyman's tent, within four rods
of the place of public prayers. None came to prayers; but they fixed a
table without the door of the tent, where a head colonel was posted to
make punch in the sight of all, they within drinking, talking, and
laughing during the whole of the service, to the disturbance and
disaffection of most present. This was not only a bare neglect, but an
open contempt, of the worship of God by the heads of this army. 'Twas
but last Sabbath that General Lyman spent the time of divine service in
the afternoon in his tent, drinking in company with Mr. Gordon, a
regular officer. I have oft heard cursing and swearing in his presence
by some provincial field-officers, but never heard a reproof nor so much
as a check to them come from his mouth, though he never uses such
language himself. Lord, what is man! Truly, the May-game of Fortune!
Lord, make me know my duty, and what I ought to do!"
That night his sleep was broken and his soul troubled by angry voices
under his window, where one Colonel Glasier was berating, in unhallowed
language, the captain of the guard; and here the chaplain's Journal
abruptly ends.
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